Chapter 26. Object-Oriented Aspects of PL/SQL
PL/SQL has always been a language that supports traditional procedural programming styles such as structured design and functional decomposition. Using PL/SQL packages, you can also take an object-based approach, applying principles such as abstraction and encapsulation to the business of manipulating relational tables. Recent versions of the Oracle database have introduced direct support for object-oriented programming (OOP), providing a rich and complex type system, complete with support for type hierarchies and “substitutability.”
In the interest of summarizing this book-length topic into a modest number of pages, this chapter presents a few choice code samples to demonstrate the most significant aspects of object programming with PL/SQL. These cover the following areas:
Creating and using object types
Using inheritance and substitutability
Type evolution
Pointer (REF)-based retrieval
Object views, including INSTEAD OF views
Among the things you will not find in this chapter are:
Comprehensive syntax diagrams for SQL statements dealing with object types
Database administration topics such as importing and exporting object data
Low-level considerations such as physical data storage on disk
I’d like to introduce the topic with a brief history.
Introduction to Oracle’s Object Features
First released in 1997 as an add-on to the Oracle8 Database (the so-called “object-relational database”), the Objects Option allowed developers to extend Oracle’s built-in ...
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